Are Yellow Vest protests taking ground in Israel?

The Author

She holds a B.A in criminology from the Free University of Brussels. She was born into a mixed family, her mother being Belgian and her father being Israeli-Arab. Being raised bilingual Dutch-English but speaks French, Arabic, Hebrew, and American Sign Language as well.

In the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, hundreds of people dressed in fluorescent traffic-safety vests protested against the high cost of living such as food items and utilities.

Groups in Israel’s social media have called out to Israeli citizens to go out and march as shown in Paris, the capital of France. The protests mostly take place outside of the Azrieli Center in Tel Aviv. There are protests planned in The Israeli capital of Jerusalem as well.

It is shown on social media that people are marching around in the city center dressed in yellow vests and waving the Israeli Flag.

According to the news website YNet, the protesters want to end economic monopolies which cause a raise in prices.

“The time has come to learn from the French. We’re done being nice,” the protest organizers said in a statement. “There’s been a wild response on the part of young people and college students, by adults who are concerned about the future of the country, of families facing economic difficulties.”

Osem, which is one of the largest food manufactures and distributors in Israel and owned by Nestlé, confirmed that there would by an increase of price of its products in January. The increase would be between 2% and 4.5%.

Several food manufacturers have announced price increases as well as the Israeli Electric Corporation and the Water Authority whom have also announced a price increase for respectively electricity and water.

About 4000 people have shown interest in attending one of the demonstrations. For hundreds of thousands of people in Israel, news of the price increases is “a slap in the face for the weakest members of society,” the organizers said.

The protests come with the long-awaiting court case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who together with his wife is facing charges for alleged corruption cases.

In 2011, there were thousands of Israeli’s protesting against the high housing prices. The protests didn’t cause any real changes.

The Egyptian government already forbade to sell yellow vests in order to attempt preventing protests such as in France, where it all originated. The French have been protesting in yellow vests against the government who were planning to increase the fuel prices.